


Dear Gods, Make Me A Bird

by ishtarelisheba



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 12:51:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6080085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Rumpelstiltskin meets the Dove for the first time. Set not long after he's lost Bae.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Gods, Make Me A Bird

Rumpelstiltskin sat at his wheel, now spinning more out of habit and the seeking of comfort than need. He spun slender yarn of the finest, softest wool, destined to eventually become a cloak for his son. Nearly finished with the hank of roving in his hand, and reached for another to feed into it. The pattern he’d come up with was fit for royalty. He would have treated it with lanolin when it was finished, to keep the weather off. It was something that Baelfire would have enjoyed, he was certain of it. Handmade, no magic. 

And now Bae wouldn’t be there to receive it.

There was a heavy, echoing rap at his door, interrupting his misery. Someone wanted something. No one came around unless they were in dire need or desire. He sighed wearily, standing, crossing the room to answer.

A man forced to hunch his back to look inside filled the doorway. He was three times Rumpelstiltskin’s size, as a conservative estimate, and managed to block daylight.

Rumpel looked up and up until he met the man’s eyes. There was undoubtedly giant somewhereabouts in his ancestry. Little more than a year ago, he might have quailed and taken a step back. Now he backed down from nothing. He turned away and flicked his hand to be followed.

The stranger at his door didn’t look at him in the way most people did now - with morbid fear and revulsion. All that he saw in the man’s eyes were sadness and need.

“What is it that you wish?” Rumpelstiltskin asked, whirling on him. “Why are you here?”

The man didn’t speak.

Rumpel leaned forward with a smile and a wrinkle of his nose. “Cat got your tongue?”

The some-portion-giant blinked at him, giving a curious look, and Rumpel saw a slight twitch in his cheek as if he’d _almost_ gotten a smile out. The man lifted a hand to cover his mouth with it.

Rumpel understood. “You’re here for a voice? I don’t typically traffic in voices, but I suppose I _could_ obtain one. I hear tell of a witch who has quite the collect-”

The man shook his head.

“No? Not here for a voice.” The corner of Rumpel’s mouth quirked, and he circled the man on restless feet. “Would that you could tell me what you _are_ here for, then!” he snipped. “I may see fits and starts of the future, but a mind-reader I am not.”

The man took two great steps over to the window, pointing through the glass at the chickadees that hopped around in the still modest sheepyard. 

“A bird? You want a bird?” Rumpel scoffed. “A bird trap is easily built, and costs far less than what I would exact.”

The man shook his head again. He pointed at the birds, then to himself.

“You want to _be_ a bird?!” Rumpel tittered. “Whatever for?”

Holding his hands out toward Rumpelstiltskin, the man held them solidly together. He ‘broke’ them apart, holding them wide.

 _That_ Rumpelstiltskin understood. “Freedom,” he murmured, and the large man nodded. “What do you need freedom from, that it takes becoming a bird to achieve?”

The man bounced his hand in front of him, as if patting the heads of a number of people of ‘normal’ height, then used his hand to imitate talking - hanging his head as his hand opened and closed in a clawed approximation of angry, ridiculing speech.

“Your family?” Rumpel asked softly as he caught on. “Or people in general?”

The man nodded. Both.

Rumpelstiltskin no longer took pity on very many people, but he felt it for this one. “There would be a price,” he said. _“All_ magic comes with a price.”

The man opened his hands, spreading them in front of him, and it was nothing if not the most common response Rumpel received to apprising customers of the cost of magic.

_Anything._

But Rumpelstiltskin didn’t want just anything. He spun on his heel, clasping his hands behind him as he paced before his enormous visitor. 

“You’ll be bound to my service,” he finally said. “My messenger, for as long as I will it. Effectively immortal, which will be helpful, should anyone go bird hunting.” He giggled, and when he looked up - so very far up - the man was smiling down at him. “For as long as you serve me.”

The man nodded readily, and Rumpelstiltskin conjured a contract and quill from the air to lay on the table next to him. The man appeared to skim it - more than most did - before picking up the pen to scrawl an ‘X’ as his mark. Rumpel picked up the contract and gave it a shake, and it disappeared in a puff of violet smoke. 

“Ready now, are we?” he asked, and the man gave him a decisive nod, dropping his hands to his sides and looking at the Dark One in expectation. 

Rumpelstiltskin tilted his head, reaching inside for the right magic. He raised a hand and gave it a quick twist of his wrist as he gathered his fingers back toward his palm in a soft fist. The voiceless man was enveloped in a far, far larger cloud of smoke, and when it dissipated, a disoriented dove stumbled sideways on the rug-covered hardpack floor. It regained its footing and flapped its wings to try them, making itself airborne long enough to perch on a slightly chagrined imp’s shoulder.

“Do me a favor, hm?” Rumpelstiltskin said, reaching up to pet the dove’s bright white feathers. It looked at him with eyes dark and glinting, twitching its head in answer. “Don’t relieve yourself on my belongings. There _are_ windows, I shall have you know. You are most welcome to avail yourself of the outdoors.”

He fluttered a hand at the bird, but it didn’t dislodge. Going over to the window, he opened it wide. “Come and go as you like, dove. You’ll know when I’m in need of you.”

The bird took a step nearer on the shoulder of Rumpel’s linen tunic, making a preening gesture in the waves of the sorcerer’s hair before hopping down to the window sill. It took off, flapping inexpertly until it reached a height, and Rumpelstiltskin watched his messenger soar off over the treetops.


End file.
